Lesson No.1

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Thursday, November 10

GUEST BLOG PARAISO

The title of this entry is a pun on ‘Guest House Paradiso’, which is a movie from the late 90s that’s basically a feature-length episode of ‘Bottom’. It may have made you think that it was going to be written by someone who isn’t me (Noel who does Lesson No.1). Sadly it is still me, but in a sense I am a guest of Paul from Burial Chamber, in that he booked a show for ACID MOTHERS TEMPLE & THE MELTING PARAISO UFO, and invited me to help him out, by doing things such as writing this blog post.

This show is in Bridgend because Paul has an affinity with the place, I think, and especially the venue it’s in, Hobos. I’ve never even been to Bridgend, but I will be getting the train after work, which runs regularly and is a piece of piss from Cardiff. You can do it too. AMT will easily finish in time for you to get the last train back. Let’s talk about them! Acid Mothers Temple, that is, not trains.

What you might know about them, and/or the stuff that should probably be talked about first anyway: they come from Japan. They’ve released records in the mid-90s, and absolutely bonkers amounts of them. You don’t have to worry about getting them all, really, but they have a surprisingly high quality threshold considering their prolific nature. Their music runs from classic psychedelia to free improv to heavy riffing stoner thud-rock to intense drone pieces to a bunch of other stuff. They often give their stuff titles parodying some of their favourite bands, with Pink Floyd and King Crimson coming in for treatment especially – the album they’re currently touring (on the Riot Season label) is called ‘The Ripper At The Heaven’s Gates Of Dark’. They are just DEVESTATING live, and while they play for ages (expect anything between 80 minutes and two hours on Mon 14, I reckon), they shapeshift and switch up so lithely and electrically, time will just fly by.

South Wales-wise, they’ve done three Cardiff dates and a Carmarthen one, by my reckoning, although nowt since 2008. (The last one, in Clwb Ifor Bach, I chiefly recall in the context of the huge Cymdeithias banners that were hung behind them onstage. I’m sure they do indeed care deeply about the preservation of the Welsh language.) People who’ve seen them on this tour – they’re already in the UK – have assured us that they’re killing it. This will seriously rearrange your head in ways that you will only understand once it’s happened. ALSO! As it stands the real, no-foolin’ Nik Turner out of HAWKWIND is set to rock up on the night and play some of his underground psych sax blare onstage with ‘em. I mean, this kind of thing is pretty ad hoc, but he asked the band to play, this isn’t some desperate hype ploy.

Add BEAR-MAN to this cauldron of excitement, as they are tonight’s support. If you ask me, they make a lot of sense. Here’s what I wrote when they played with Drum Eyes in Buffalo earlier this year: “Bear-Man are a Cardiff-based trio who are playing their debut show. They feature ex/current members of The Martini Henry Rifles and Brown Wings, but don’t sound much like those bands. Exciting free improv guitar-drum-knobs blowouts are the name of the game – think, let’s say, Ultralyd, Aufgehoben, The Dead C, Sunburned... to kick you off. They have a cassette release coming soon on Cardiff’s rad Phantomhead label.”

That cassette has now been out the best part of a year, and was/is dope; you might be able to buy it somewhere still, but if not check this. You will however be wanting a wad of notes for the Acid Mothers distro table, which tends to groan under the weight of virgin vinyl and lurid tripster colour schemes.